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Interview with Skepchick Kammy

Kammy was kind enough to let me come over and interview her, and even kinder to let me abbreviate and paraphrase our chat for time’s sake. She refuses to read it through. She says she’s sure I did fine. Mwahahaha! Regardless of the evil laugh, I do believe I have accurately captured the essence of the interview.

Here it is!

Me: I kind of want to do this as a video interview, but I’m failed at that this morning.

Kammy: Well, if we do it as a video I’m going to put a bra on. I don’t want to represent Skepchick with my nipples sticking out.

Me: I can respect that. Okay! First question. How sleep deprived to I seem to you?

Kammy: You seem actually fairly normal to me

Me: Thanks. I think. So Kammy, are you going to help me bullshit my way through this brief interview? I don’t have anything planned for this.

Kammy: Some bullshit questions, huh?

Me: So, you’re a Skepchick. What do you do the for the Skepchicks?

Kammy: I handle the calendar on the Skepchick website and I help organize SkepchickCon at CONvergence every year. It’s over the fourth of July weekend and we’ve got a lot going on this year. Right now I’m on full on panic mode because it’s only 26 days away.

Me: What are you most looking forward to at SkepchickCON?

Kammy: The day after. When everybody comes over for barbeque at my house.

Me: This is the first year I’m speaking at CONvergence you know.

Kammy: Yes, yes. We actually had a lot of say in the scheduling this year and we’re very excited about our panels. A lot of people think that SkepchickCON is all about the room parties, but the education aspect is very important to us – it’s the main reason we do this. Last year we only had 11 panels and this year we have 17! We have full days of paneling on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And this year we’ll have adjoining party rooms with Freethought Blogs

Me: Woo-hoo!

Kammy: Yeah. It’s our first year working with Freethought Blogs. We’re working closely with PZ Myers, who wants to take over but that’s not going to happen.

Me: Well, PZ wants to take over the world.

Kammy: Not going to happen. This is my one thing. He can’t have it. Seriously though, there has been a huge joint effort between me, PZ, Greg Laden and my co-planner Melissa Lee.

Me: Kammy, I think of you as a feminist and an atheist – are you involved in either any activism for either of those causes right now?

Kammy: There’s no more time to do any more than what I’m already doing with SkepchickCON.

Me: But you do go to Minnesota Skeptics stuff.

Kammy: Not as much as I used to. I’m spending a lot of time with my family.

Me: Any tips for raising skeptical and secular children?

Kammy: I’m not one of those atheist parents who say “I’m going to present both sides of the story.” because the other side of the story is a lie. We told our son from the beginning that God is something that other people believe in. They’re nice people, they’re good people, but they believe something that we don’t believe. Now my son runs into kids who have religious beliefs and we counsel him to just walk from the topic – don’t get into arguments. Because just like I don’t want Christian kids and their parents proselytizing to my child I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to tell other people’s children that there is no god.

Me: What are you reading to your son right now?

Kammy: I love reading to him! We just finished the Harry Potter series and now we’re reading the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. A lot of people don’t know that he wrote about 20 other books on the Oz series. They’re in the public domain, but if you want the beautiful illustrations – and you do – I can show you where to find them.

Me: What are you drinking tonight?

Kammy: Amaretto Sour.

Me: Ah. Nice and simple.

Kammy: Simple

Me: And classy.

Kammy: Ha! Yeah. Classy.

Me: Alright Kammy, anything else you want me to put in here? Any final words?

Kammy: If you’re going to be in the area and able to get here for it, you should come to SkepchickCON. It’s great. It feels like home. You can fly your freak flag and everybody loves you for it. I’m among my peeps. And we’ve got so much awesome science programming and the parties are going to be great.

Me: And I’m speaking.

Kammy: And Brianne’s speaking. And Stephanie Zvan. And we’re bringing in Maggie Koerth-Baker

Me: From BoingBoing.net.

Kammy: Yes. And PZ Myers and Greg Laden and Rebecca, Lousy Canuck. Lots of people! Mad Art Lab is going to have a huge presence. There’s going to be more Skepchicks and Freethought Bloggers than anyone can stand in one place.